


Fate: Core, side story, T'was the Night Before Fatemas

by Mamshiba101



Category: Fate (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Christmas, Cyberpunk, Dark Comedy, Gen, Holiday hijinks, Post-Apocalypse, non-canon, tabletop novelized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27374134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mamshiba101/pseuds/Mamshiba101
Summary: The non-canon holiday special for user RachelTheHero's novelization of our Fate: Core campaign. A dramatic retelling of this massive session with some eldritch horror thrown in to spice it up a bit. Happy holidays!
Kudos: 1
Collections: Fate: The Marvelous Journey of a Bunch of Idiots





	Fate: Core, side story, T'was the Night Before Fatemas

**Author's Note:**

> As I said, this is a side story of the novelization RachelTheHero's making of our campaign, so I'd read the first two or three chapters before reading this, as it'll introduce the characters and how this world works. This session actually took place between session/chapter 2 and 3, meaning it had the first actual fights we did within the system, go figure. And yes, after losing her boobs, Chastity is referred to as "Chasy" for the rest of the story cause I told the party I'd commit to it. Anyway, hope you enjoy this, its kinda...a lot!

You wake up and realize quickly that you do not know where you are or how you got here. You are lying in a four-poster bed, or rather, you are strapped down to the bed; several metal restraints pin your body down. You are in an average sized bedroom, but it is not your own. It is heavily decorated and themed with christmas decorations, among other things, the wallpaper has a reindeer trim, the bureau opposite you is adorned with a number of festive snowglobes and baubles, and a medium sized christmas tree sits in the corner of the room, covered in tinsel, warm whiteish-gold lights and assorted ornaments. The headboard of the bed is placed against the back of one wall, with a door on your left and a window on your right, displaying a snow covered, forest laden countryside. Next to your bed, there is a wooden rocking chair with snowflakes carved in as decoration. A cushion sits on it, the face of Santa Claus is sewn onto the front. You stare into pillow Santa's blank, soulless eyes. He stares back. 

When you fell asleep you were in your bed, at your home in San Diego California. It was June. You are very afraid. 

You begin trying to move from your restraints, and as you do, you hear the sound of approaching footsteps. You decide to close your eyes and pretend that you are still asleep. Within seconds, the door opens up, which is accompanied by canned applause and cheering, the kind you hear on a talk show or sitcom. As suddenly as the applause started, it stops after a few seconds and you hear the door close before the footsteps come closer. The mysterious person is standing to your right now, you can hear them breathing. You try to slow your own breathing as much as possible. 

“I know you're awake, son” the voice says. It sounds ethereal. Unable to continue the act, you open your eyes. The man standing over you is dressed in a red sweater vest embroidered with snowmen over a white dress shirt, and he is wearing brown slacks. He has no face. His body is composed of an ever moving clear yet opaque fluid, but you can still feel his breathing although he has no mouth. 

“Who are you?” You ask. “Why am I here?”

“Timmy, you silly billy, I'm your beloved grandpappy Elsigar! I brought you here so we can enjoy the holiday season as a family.” The man? (or is he some kind of otherworldly being) says, thought not with the voice of an old man, no, he has the smooth, buttery voice of one of those guys who narrates documentaries, yet with an ethereal, unworldly edge to it. Like Neil DeGrasse Tyson if his voice was slightly filtered.

“My name is Kevin, and you are not my grandfather.” 

The man sighs and turns away from you. “Yes, well…..I had hoped I wouldn't have to tell you this until you were older….and during Christmas no less! Ah well, I guess it can't be avoided anymore…...you're…….adopted.” 

“Im 24-”

“Yes Timmy, I know it must be hard for a young boy like yourself to take that in, but let's have it wait until tomorrow, shall we? Your mother told me you were having a hard time getting to bed, were you going to try and stay up all night to see Santa Claus again, you little scamp?” 

“My mother’s been dead for four years.” 

The man, ‘Elsigar’ looks at his feet dejectedly “It has rather felt like that, hasn't it? She took it really hard when your father left- but enough of this depressing talk, it's Christmas eve!” 

“Its June.” 

“Oh Timmy, you jokester! I know just the thing to get you dreaming of sugarplum fairies in no-time! How about a bedtime story?” 

“Please man, I don't know what you're trying to do here, but I swear I won't call the cops or ever say anything if you just let me go.” You try to reason with Elsigar, but he is not listening to you. He is walking over to a bookshelf, placed to the left of the bureau and shuffling through it. 

“Let's see, let's see…..’Smigmar’s anthology of holiday heckles’.....’The reign of Kris Kringle iv, Emperor of multiverse 12.25’........’Naughty or Ice? A Jack Frost x Santa story-‘ whoops! I...uh don't know how that got here!” Elsigar, despite having no face, now has those anime blush circles on his cheeks. 

“Aha! Here it is!” He walks back over to you, with a red bound book in hand, titled ‘T’was the Night Before Fatemas’ in golden cursive. On the front cover is an image of some kind of man flying out of a canon, but you can’t really make it out too well, it passes by you so fast the man’s face almost looks like some kind of animal. 

“You're in for a treat Timmy, this is my favorite Christmas story!” Elsigar says, as he sits down in the rocking chair. You blink, and he is wearing reading glasses, and a pipe is in his opposite hand. Despite having no mouth, he clears his throat before placing the pipe to where his face should be. It stays suspended in the air, directly next to where his mouth would be as he opens the book and begins to read:  
~

“Twas the night before christmas  
And all through the city,   
All sorts of people were stirring  
All different sorts of shitty.

Our so called heroes were all  
Preparing for christmas day  
All getting in the “holiday spirit”,  
In their own special way

Jamie sat by the fire  
Watching its warm orange glow,  
Sipping a cup of tea  
And droning out pained screams from below

Andy was at a bar when a fight began  
As it began he lingered behind  
While others watched the brawl,  
He was robbing them blind

Chastity was with a client  
Who was eating her grass  
While being spanked with a paddle.  
She was drunk off her ass

Al sat in his shop  
Decked out in holiday lights,  
Fiddling with Boxy  
And watching passing urbanites 

Phoenix wandered the streets  
Festive plans he did conspire,  
He was spreading the warm feelings of christmas  
By setting christmas trees on fire

Son Hattori was training  
On a rooftop in the snowy night  
Trying to hold up to his family name  
But probably just getting frostbite”

~  
“Wait, wait, wait. Who are these people?” You say, confused. Stories usually introduce characters, but this one just jumped in and Kevin knew jack shit about what was going on. Wasn't this supposed to be a children's book? What was with that spanking thing? What the hell kind of name is Son Hattori? Also, as soon as Elsigar began talking, conveniently royalty free christmas music began playing out of seemingly nowhere, just like the canned sitcom laughter.

“What do you mean beloved grandson? It is the cast of the beloved, best-selling edgy teen/young adult tabletop RPG fanfiction, Fate: CORE.” Elsigar could not believe his grandchild was so poorly read, but reading the entire collector's edition of the novelization (which he kept in his personal bookshelf) would take far too long for one night, and besides, it wasn't Christmas-y enough. 

“Fate core?-”

“Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped. You’ll figure it out in due time. Now where was I….ah:  
~

“When suddenly, in a flash  
And a frigid wind blast,  
Each lost something important,  
Leaving them aghast

Jamie lost her tiara,  
Andy his eye,   
Chastity lost her tits, (& booze)  
She felt like she could cry

Al lost boxie,   
Phoenix, his favorite light(er)  
Along with Son Hattori’s beloved sword,  
They all disappeared into the night

Without these things  
The six despaired,   
For from great misfortune,   
None had been spared

Rendered blind by his patch,  
Andy was found with a shout  
After being beaten up,  
He was promptly thrown out

While chastity panicked,  
Her client stumbled away  
Saying he would return to finish   
On some other day

Having lost his robot son,   
Al did then  
Feel the cold clutch of existential loneliness  
Once again

Phoenix’ arson came to a stop  
Thought try as he might,  
You can't spread christmas cheer  
Without a light

In losing his sword,   
Son Hattori smudged his family name,  
He bent his head down  
And felt deep, clichéd shame

In their hopeless thoughts  
One mutual idea came to mind  
To seek out their good friend Jamie,  
To help them she would be inclined

And so off they ran to Jamie’s   
As fast as they could  
She’d know just what to do,  
Of course she would!

Little did they know,  
Jamie had the same plight  
Without her tiara, she couldn't control her arm,  
She was in some deep shite

The five all arrived   
At about the same time,   
And realizing their shared problem,   
Vowed to solve the crime

And off they went,  
Our motley crew,  
In search of their treasures  
Where were they going? Who knew!

Our heroes all gathered at Jamie’s one by one, each in varying states of disarray. Most of them assumed that out of anyone, Jamie would be most likely to have any idea of what the fuck was going on, but alas, she was caught off guard just like the rest of them, and off balance too at the loss of her left arm’s autonomy. The group gathered in the living area of Jamie’s house, on the couches, in sort of a half circle. After a few minutes of trying to go over exactly what happened to them, Chastity was the first to make a move, albeit with considerably less tity then usual, slamming her fist down on the coffee table placed in the center of their semicircle before speaking.

“Alright guys, we need to come up with a plan”. Chasy was fucking pissed. Not only did she lose a paying client, but she missed her morning shot! She was sober, and if she was sure of anything she was sure that nobody should have to be sober on Christmas. Ever since that weird wind took away her tits she hadn't been able to drink a drop of alcohol, she couldn't even touch it! Jamie tried to give her some scotch to console her after she arrived, but the second she thought she grabbed the bottle it phased right out of her hand like magic and crashed into the floor. Looking at the shattered remains of what would've been the best scotch she had had in weeks filled Chasy with unyielding rage, the likes of which she hadn't felt in years. 

~  
“Why did it suddenly shift out of rhyme scheme? Can’t they just be consistent? Also, I still know none of these characters” Kevin may have been abducted but he was still more than capable of critically analyzing this random book. Also, he was kinda a tool. 

“Oh Timmy, nobody has the patience to write in rhyme scheme for a whole story! That would be unbearable for everyone involved! Not to mention, it requires a lot more work. Didn’t I ever tell you that in a capitalist state only quick, soulless and marketable artistic work can make money? Silly boy, genuine creativity and innovation died long ago! Anyway, back to the story:”  
~

Jamie, mildly startled by the nightwalker’s outburst tried to calm the woman down. “Well, I think the first thing we should do is figure out when all of our belongings went missing, because if it all happened at once then that means something supernatural is going on, but if these were separate occurrences, it could just be normal theft.” The General wouldn’t normally be inclined to believe in supernatural happenings, being a well educated woman and all, but under the circumstances, she wasn’t exactly left with a better explanation.

“That sounds like a good idea” Al said, only a few hours had passed since Boxy disappeared but Al was already on the brink of emotional collapse. 

“It was about 11:15 for me, somewhere around that time.” Said Son. He was less concerned about the loss of his sword, and by association his honor (he lost all shreds of that long ago) than he was about the fact that everyone else in the group had the same experience. Something seemed up. 

“I was just having a good time...and now he’s gone.” Al couldn’t exactly remember what time it was when Boxy disappeared, time lost its meaning to him after that. 

“Are you alright Al?” Jamie was rather concerned about the mechanic, soon after he arrived at her home, he walked up to her toaster and started weeping, he hadn’t been able to do much more than sit down in a semi-catatonic state since. 

“Just take a shot buddy, that’s what I do! Takes away all the pain, trust me.” Chasy slung her arm around Al’s shoulder and gave him a few pats for good measure.

“I don't drink…” Al half-shrugged off Chasy’s arm, too depressed to do any more.

“That's not what you should do” Andy said to the prostitute. He actually came to Jamie’s house to seek medical treatment because he just got the shit beaten out of him and he was pretty sure a few of his ribs were broken, plus it kind of hurt to walk. He stopped coughing up blood about an hour ago though, so he at least wasn’t in immediate danger of passing out anymore. He felt like solving this problem was more important since the longer they waited the further whoever did this would get. That, and Al looked like he was inches from throwing himself out of Jamie’s sixth floor window and he didn’t want to have that on his conscience. 

“What time did everyone-“ Son began, only to be interrupted by Chasy.

“But now I can’t take a shot! Do you understand?” Like Al, Chasy was also on the brink of an emotional breakdown. 

“What time-“

“Maybe this is the world’s way of trying to save you” Andy thought it would do the woman some good to be sober for once in her life, it would mean she’d be less of a headache. 

“WHAT TIME DID EVERYONE’S SHIT GO MISSING” Son yelled over Chasy and Andy’s pointless argument, half surprised they still managed to squabble given the fact that Chasy was mid-crisis and Andy looked half-dead. 

“Well, mine went when I was getting my evening cup of tea, so approximately three hours ago” Jamie nearly dropped her favorite teacup in surprise, so she remembered it well.

“Oh, well...that’s a good sign” said the blue man. 

“I think my eye disappeared around that time as well. I'm not 100% sure what time it was because I was knocked out for about 20 minutes” Andy wasn’t totally sure how long he was out in the snow, but it was short enough that he didn’t get frostbite. 

“I don’t know?!” How the hell did blue balls expect her to know what the time was mid-fuck? “I wasn’t groping my boobs, someone else was groping my boobs!”

“Ok, do you want to call him, Chastity and ask what time he was groping your boobs at?” Son said. 

“I mean...I don’t have a phone on me right now but sure?” 

“Do you keep your phone in your tits?” 

“YES!” 

“If Boxy were here we could make a phone…” a single tear fell from Al’s face.

“What kind of fuckin choice is that?” Son knew Chasy was a mess but this time it was especially inconvenient.

“It's a choice that I made!”

“Are you surprised?” Andy was pretty sure she could fit an entire bottle of booze in there.

“I’m not surprised, I’m just disappointed” Chasy had this magical way of proving Son wrong as soon as he gave her any good faith, and this was no exception.

“What did you expect buddy?” 

“Eh, I always expect something more from people” 

“Well that’s your mistake” If nothing else, Andy had learned that you can never be disappointed by someone or by yourself if you never expect shit to begin with. “So…how should we go about getting our shit back?

“I mean,” piped Jamie “did anyone see how everything disappeared? Was it light or some kind of mysterious breeze?” She distinctly remembered feeling a chill just as her arm disappeared, despite having a roaring fire in her fireplace. A fire that Phoenix had been sitting in front of, mesmerized, since he came in. Son had tried waving his hand in front of the man’s face some time ago to get his attention, but to no avail. “I feel like if we can identify what we’re dealing with, tracking it down will be easier.” 

“I’m not sure…” Al hadn’t been able to feel anything but existential dread for hours, he definitely wouldn't be able to notice a breeze.

“I felt a mysterious breeze, and then everything went dark” Andy meant that literally, he had been using his bio implant at the time to better pickpocket bar patrons while they were distracted by some barfight. He became the center of the fight once he stumbled in his blindness and got found out though, and then things really went dark. “It was strange because I was in a locked building, but I still felt the breeze anyway.” 

“I just blinked once while I was playing with Boxy and then he was gone when I opened my eyes” Al was crying openly at this point. Quietly, but openly. 

“I didn’t feel anything weird, I felt a breeze, but I was also on a rooftop.” Son’s sword was there one second and gone the next. 

Phoenix turned from where he was on the ground to face the rest of the group “I felt the breeze and my fires went out” He still had the lighter in his arm, but the one he lost was one of his favorites, he used it during the holidays every year, and he felt like he couldn’t continue his yuletide arson in good conscience until he got it back. The one in his arm wasn’t nearly as efficient in setting evergreens ablaze, and besides, it seemed like any real fire he tried to set went out immediately, with the same cool breeze. 

“Well this is great!” Exclaimed Son “If we all felt the breeze, we can get Boxy to- oh…” 

Reminding Al of his missing son caused him to weep harder. 

“Look at what you did!” Said Andy, they had been trying to avoid mentioning Boxy for the sake of Al’s steadily decreasing stability

Expecting this breakdown, Jamie handed Al a warm mug of hot chocolate, which he took. Drinking the cocoa muffled Al’s sobs significantly. 

“I think the conclusion we’ve come to is that we have to kill the wind” Andy wasn’t sure how exactly they would do that, but that was all he could come up with. 

Son gave a grunt in affirmation, and Jamie repeated “We have to kill the wind” with a vague sense of resolve, as if she was trying to convince herself that this could be a goal. 

“Let's go find the wind” Andy said, standing up from the couch, and simultaneously realizing that his ankle had been severely fucked up.

“Sure” Chasy followed suit, though without cringing in pain. 

“Let’s go,” Al having chugged his hot cocoa also prepared to leave. The searing feeling the hot liquid left in his mouth and throat almost made him feel something. “Anything to get my friend back.” 

Noting the man’s blank, 100 yard stare, Son eyed the rest of the group “I think someone should uh, stay with Al and make sure he’s…doing ok. Y’know, stand next to him and make sure he doesn’t do anything.” Son would’ve said “make sure he doesn’t end himself” but he didn’t want to directly put the idea in the mechanic’s head. 

Coming to the same realization, Jamie stood from her armchair “I’ll hang back with him, cause you know, I’m a bit...incapacitated at the moment.” Jamie walked over to Al and put her movable hand on his shoulder, gently nudging him to the door. “C’mon bud, let’s go find your box...” She was only at half strength, but she was still verbally competent enough to keep the man from doing anything drastic.

“I mean, it’s harder to kill yourself then you’d think, it’s really not that easy.” Quipped Chasy, getting a soft “Yeah…” in reply from Son 

“Well, the human body has a durability factor of either 100 or 0, and it seems to fluctuate back and forth on a day to day basis.” Son wasn’t exactly human, but he still knew that living through any kind of injury was pure luck half the time with little rhyme or reason. 

And with that rousing speech, the group decided to leave, they had seen everything, and so they promptly left the Grant compound and wandered out into the night. All of them were frowning, somehow Al’s frown was so deep it extended out of his face as if he was in a cartoon, but given the other supernatural happenings of the night, no one really cared to comment. Like this (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)

~  
“How the fuck did you make that noise with your mouth” Kevin said. He didn’t think it was humanly possible to say an emoticon, but he was pretty sure this being was not human. 

“I’ll teach you when you’re older sonny.” Elsigar winked at him before continuing, even though he did not have eyes.   
~

After leaving Jamie’s apartment, our decidedly not holly-jolly party found themselves in a fairly large plaza. An oversized Christmas tree stood in the center of the plaza, adorned with colorful lights and festive decorations, as was the plaza itself. Snow was falling lightly from above, and a slight northern breeze was blowing. Were the party not so determined, pissed and/or depressed, they all would have thought it was a beautiful sight. 

Seeing such a large tree made Phoenix’ arson hand twitch, it would be so much more beautiful if it was engulfed in flames, but sadly that would have to wait until he got his special lighter back...then again, there’s always a way when it comes to arson… 

Al lifted his head to look at the tree, the many lights reflecting on his concerningly moist eyes “You know who would have liked this Christmas tree?...BOXY!!!” 

It was then that they decided to look at the area in greater detail to try and pick up clues. None of them quite knew what exactly they were looking for, so they instead tried to focus on whatever they could notice as out of the ordinary. Al considered trying to notice clues as well, but was too depressed to look at more than his feet and the void. Noticing this, Jamie put a hand on his shoulder before beginning her detective work “It’s ok buddy you just hang out here, it’s fine.” 

Son Hattori, Phoenix and Jamie stepped forward to survey the area, putting their heads together to get the lay of the area. Andy also went to help them, switching his eyepatch over, only to remember that his bio implant was gone and all that was left was an empty, scarred eye socket, so he instead just stood next to Al and Chasy and felt sad for a few minutes. 

Right off the bat, the three noticed several things; In a corner of the plaza, next to a rather shady looking building, was a visibly homeless and mentally absent old man dressed in what was clearly a stolen Santa costume. He was lounging on the ground, looking north with a blank expression on his face. In addition to the homeless man, the group found a set of very light footprints in the freshly fallen snow that coated the ground. The prints headed north, same as the wind, and most importantly, they weren’t human. Finally, a few yards off from them, they noticed a singular bagel on the ground. 

“Oh, a bagel…I like bagels.” Al found the motivation to move towards the bagel. Thinking about the bagel almost made him feel something more than sadness. Almost.

Son approached the mechanic “D’you want the bagel, buddy?” He needed some cheering up, and if ice cold manufactured carbs managed to make him look a little less like he just watched his parents get shot, than that was fine by him. 

“Yes…please” the man whimpered.

Son reached down to grab the bagel off of the snowy ground, but found that it was stuck, like someone literally glued it to the concrete. Even with his enhanced strength it didn’t budge at all which was both worrying and incredibly annoying, as Son didn’t like the idea of being bested by a bagel. 

Watching the giant struggle and fail to pick up the bagel managed to make Al even more disheartened then he was before somehow. “This day is going from bad to worse” 

“It’s ok buddy, I’ll just chop the- oh…” Son doubted his other blades could get the bagel off the ground as well as his sword…he moved to stand next to Andy, and they felt functionally useless together. 

Chasy walked past the rest of the group who was still semi huddled around the bagel and approached the homeless man. She sauntered up to him seductively, although with significantly less sex appeal than usual because of her dearly departed dobonhonkeros. The homeless man ignored her though, almost as if he was looking past her. 

He eventually acknowledged the thot, with a gurgly “Eueh, what do you want?” You could almost feel the lung cancer in his voice. 

Chasy flipped her hair “So ah, I see you’re dressed as Santa” ;)

The hobo let out a grunt “What’s it to you?” 

“I hear that there’s a bar crawl going on with the Santas are you part of that?” 

“I aint apart of no bar crawl, I’m just lookin for a good time.” 

“A good time you say? Could you ah...exchange some...goods for some services?” Chasy bent down and moved her chest forward as if to draw attention to her hobondonkeroos, but all it did was show off how ill-fitting her dress was now.

The hobo grinned and moved his hand as if to shoo her aside. “Not with you, sweet cheeks, I aint lookin for one of them with the tiddies, I want THAT ONE!” The homeless santa gremlin instead pointed directly at an incredulous Son Hattori. The other members of the party tried to hold in their hysterical laughter with varying degrees of success. 

“I like ‘im. He’s got a good lookin...cheek.” The man licked his lips. Son felt something deep within him die. He had to fucking obliterate this man.

Son tried to look at the man in the most intimidating way he possibly could, but sadly it was a turn on to the hobo “Mmhm...that’s pretty hot. Yeah, I like that a lot. Ah…” The man pulled out a paddle from his Santa costume, from somewhere near the north pole if you know what I mean [insert winkie face here.] “I want you to slap me, in my asscheeks with this.” 

“I'm on this- I’m on this like white on rice, give me the fuckin paddle!” Son was ready to destroy this man ass first.

“Alright.” The hobo replied with a grin. “If you slap me with this, I heard you’re lookin for somethin, y’all mumbling about missing possessions? Well earlier I saw this weird guy go that way and into the building.” 

He handed Son the wooden paddle and stood with his back to him before dropping his pants. The hobo’s bulbous, hairy ass cheeks jiggled before Son. “Hit me.” He sucked in a breath. “Hit me and i’ll tell you what you want.” 

Son winded up his arm with the paddle like a pitcher would with a baseball in a long forgotten game, but with more raw anger, and hit the man. Hard. He hit him so hard his entire body rippled. The rolls of fat in his body traveled upward in a wave. The snow directly surrounding the pair stopped midair and burst outward because of the sheer force in Son’s slap. In response, the hobo let out a resounding “AWWWW YEAAAAH!!!” In a half-scream half-moan. 

“Aaauhh, auhh yeah...AGAIN!” 

“I won’t do it again unless you tell us what we want to know about our missing items.” 

The hobo begrudgingly complied. “Alright, up north I saw this guy, I couldn’t quite catch a glimpse of him but he looked kinda dark.” The man paused to hack for a few moments before continuing. “Like one of those uh, blacks. I saw him go up that way towards the building on the left. He entered through the second floor, I swear! He just jumped right up in one swift leap! Got me a little hard I think…”

“Alright, so just to be clear, he traveled in the same direction these footprints are heading?” 

“Footprints? I don’t see any footprints.” 

“Alright, well, I suppose a promise is a promise!” That first hit was pussy shit compared to what Son was going to do to this man now that he didn’t have to worry about keeping him alive. He was going to enjoy this. 

The hobo prepared his still raw ass for a second round. “Aw yeahhh, hit me, hit me!” 

Son put a little more preparation into it this time. He rolled his arms, bounced back and forth a bit, clapped his hands together a few times, got himself hyped up to decimate this man. Once more, Son winded up his arm, and then he swung. The moment the paddle made contact with the hobo’s ass, the man fucking disinigrated. In sync with a deafening clap, the festive clad man turned to ash and flew away with the wind. 

After a few moments of silence, the party heard a faint “Ooooh yeaaah…” almost as if with the wind. He died completely and utterly aroused. 

Undisturbed by the fact that he just turned a human man to dust with sheer force, Son turned to face the rest of the group. “We should all, I think, collectively forget that that ever happened, and head in the direction he said to head in!” 

“Good idea…” Al thought losing Boxy would be the most traumatizing thing he would experience today, but that was pretty awful. Now he was sad, and uncomfortable. 

“Any objections?” 

It took the rest of the group a little longer to both process, and mentally erase what they had just witnessed. 

“No, no objections, seems like a good idea.” Andy almost wished he had lost both of his eyes so he wouldn’t have had to witness that. “I’m still kinda traumatized by the fact that you just fucking killed a man with a paddle.” 

“How did you kill that man?!” Jamie was pretty sure a wooden paddle wasn’t sturdy enough to reduce a grown man to dust. 

Chasy was impressed, blue-balls could do pretty well in her field now that she thought about it. “Someday you’ll have to teach me how to wind up a paddle like that.” 

As the deceased hobo told them, they headed north to the specified building. 

The building itself was square shaped (squareular, if you will). They found themselves in an open space towards the very front of the building, it had a few couches, a nice carpet, a few windows, and an empty reception desk, it seemed like some kind of waiting room for whatever lay deeper in the building. The only way to move beyond the waiting room was a large door placed next to the receptionist desk.

A vengeful Chasy moved to kick open the door. She wanted her booze back dammit! What actually happened is that Chasy’s fishnet-clad leg bounced off the door like it was nothing, the door was locked and too sturdy to be broken through. 

After watching this exchange, Son turned to face the rest of the group. “Does anyone here know how to lockpick?” 

Phoenix perked his head up. “I do!” This was his specialty. The redhead rolled up his left sleeve and brought his robotic left arm to the lock, fidgeting with his index finger for a minute before inserting it into the hole, now in the shape of a key. 

With a klink, the door unlatched and popped right open, revealing a second, even sturdier looking door. It was chrome plated and covered in complex, futuristic mechanics, the likes of which none in the party had seen since before the fall, they didn’t even know it existed anymore. Suspiciously, the only visible lock was shaped like a bagel. 

“Motherfucker.” Said Chasy.

Phoenix's arm was made for lockpicking, but even it couldn’t change shape that drastically. “We need the bagel.” 

“I guess so…” Al really wanted a bagel right now to heal his broken soul. 

“Son, maybe we can use your paddle to scrape the bagel off the ground!” It wasn’t exactly a sword, but if it could turn a man to dust without breaking it should be able to scrape off the bagel just fine. She did wish there was some way he could clean it first though…

Everyone went back outside and walked to where the bagel was in the snow, but it was gone, leaving behind an empty bagel shaped imprint in the snow. 

“Motherfucker...” Said Son. 

“I really wanted that bagel…” Al could feel his will to live getting farther and farther away from him, just like the bagel. 

Andy patted the mechanic’s arm “It’s gonna be ok Al, it’s gonna be ok.” Son followed suit on his opposite arm. “You’re gonna be alright buddy.” It almost made Al feel better, but then he looked down at the imprint of the bagel and felt sad again. 

Jamie bent down and scrutinized the spot where the bagel was, so concentrated the party couldn’t even tell whether or not she was breathing. After about two minutes of this, the socialite suddenly shot up from where she was squatting, almost ramming her head into Phoenix who had been looking over her. There was something seriously off about the bagel’s imprint, it looked almost as if it grew legs and walked away. “Oh god…” 

After relaying this new and strange information to the rest of the group, Al decided that he no longer wanted to eat the bagel, which made him marginally less depressed. 

“Alright guys let’s get this bread!” Said the prostitute, clapping her hands together.

“I don’t think you want bread that has legs, alright?!” Internally, Jamie pondered the ethics of eating food that had gained sentience. 

“It is the key...” Said Phoenix. They had to find it if they wanted a chance at opening that high-tech door. 

Jamie let out a sigh. “Has anyone seen any tiny footprints anywhere?” 

After several moments of looking, the group spotted them; they were pretty odd, going around from the epicenter sporadically, like it didn’t know where it was going. It walked into the Christmas tree, fell onto the ground, shook itself off, wandered around the tree like it was lost again, and then finally went into the building opposite them. 

Chasy pointed at the building the tiny footprints led to. “Looks like we’re going in there.” 

“Alright.” Said Jameson. 

The group started heading in the direction of the building, but Son suddenly came to a halt, having noticed another, different set of footprints. “Hey Jamie, take a look at this.” 

“Hm?” Jamie backtracked to where Son was and looked down to the area of the snow he was pointing at. “Oh my, I didn’t even see these before, good catch my friend!” 

Jamie knelt to take a closer look at the prints. They looked a little faded in the snow, like they had been made some time ago, before it started to snow again. The best she could make out with such faint prints was that they looked vaguely like some kind of combination between a human footprint and a hoofprint. “Well, that’s a bit concerning…” 

Jamie decided to take a closer look at the bagel’s footprints as well, as odd of a thought that was 10 minutes ago, given she was already on the ground anyway. She almost hesitated to call them footprints, they almost looked like the kind of marks a stick figure man would leave behind, long and skinny dashes in the snow. She supposed that a bagel with stick figure limbs was a more comforting image than if the bagel had human-like extremities though. She relayed both sets of information she gathered to the group, sans the somewhat terrifying image of a bagel with human limbs. 

It seemed to Son that they had two options now. “So do we go into the building the bagel prints lead to, or do we go and follow the hoofprints?” 

Jamie stood back up. “I think those prints will lead back to the building we were in, I think we should get the bagel first.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Son forgot about the second door. 

Phoenix looked up at the building the bagel prints led to. It was about 6 stories high. There were no windows on the first or third floor, but there were on every other floor. 

Al noticed Phoenix blankly staring up and said the same thing he was thinking. “That’s a weird way to build a building.” 

“Weird indeed.” Phoenix thought there was something off about this building, he had a bad feeling about it. 

The party followed the bagel’s stick figure prints into the odd building, and found themselves in a very long hallway, with a set of stairs at the end. The moment the last of them entered, a jarringly loud clang could be heard from behind them. 

“I don’t like that.” Were they locked in? This place was setting off a lot of red flags for Andy and they had only been in the building for 5 seconds. It looked almost like some kind of warehouse despite looking like a generic office building from the outside, but the ceiling was a little too low for a warehouse. Andy really wished he had his eye right now, it was so dark he could barely see 10 feet in front of him. 

Son turned to Phoenix. “Hey, can you make some kind of fire so we can see?” If anyone would have a spare light on them it would be the pyromaniac.

Phoenix nodded in understanding before lighting his hand up. Although dampened by whatever force was acting on his ability to set fires, it still allowed the group to see a ways in front of them. 

The group was collectively alarmed by the fact that they could see what appeared to be blood splatters at the light’s edge, and pools of blood that extended into the darkness. It looked fresh. Andy, who was closest to the pools, took a few big steps back. 

“That’s not good…” Al liked keeping his blood inside of his body. 

“It could be jam from the bagel?” Son half said, half asked. 

“I hope it’s jam from the bagel.” 

“I don’t think it is…” Jamie said. The consistency of jam is thicker than what they were looking at, and these bloodstains looked like they would be quite hard to fake. 

“I don’t either, but im trying to keep morale up.” 

“That’s quite a lot of blood,” Phoenix tried to step out further to get a better look. 

Jamie went with him to take a closer look at the bloodstains, it was possible that it really could be some kind of watery, very dark red jam. The closer she got though, the more sure she was that it was human blood. Not only that, it was still warm, meaning it was very fresh. “Oh god…”

Phoenix waved his arm a little farther, and in such a way that at the edge of the darkness, a pile of what appeared to be human bodies could be seen. There were roughly 15-20 bodies strewn about, although none in the group had the stomach to actually count them and find that out. The only other thing they could make out from such a distance was that they were all covered in broken christmas lights. 

In response to this, Son readied his hobo vaporizing paddle for a fight. 

“I don’t wanna see dead bodies, I wanna find my friend and I wanna go home.”

“Oh Al sweetie, turn around, it’s ok.” Jamie turned around and tried to physically block the pile of corpses from the mechanic’s view. 

Son gripped Al’s shoulder with his non-paddle wielding hand. “We’ll find your friend for you buddy.” 

In the midst of this, Phoenix’s light was put out with a mysterious, cool breeze, leaving them in near-total darkness in a hallway filled with corpses. In the distance, on the far side of the room, the echoing sound of some kind of machine revving up could be heard, followed by several loud clanking noises, before going silent. 

Suddenly, the lights turned on, allowing the party to see the area in full. Not only was there the pile of bodies they had been looking at before the blackout, there was an almost comical number of bodies strewn throughout the room, all loaded with christmas lights, all looking as if they had been running towards the exit before they were killed. At the very far end of the hallway stood a giant machine, looking vaguely like an enormous gun, but with more chambers, three main chambers and two smaller ones at either end. There was also little seat on the top of the machine with its back to them, but it was rather crudely built, as if it was a last minute addition made by something without hands. It was a swively chair. 

This didn’t really bode too well with anybody, to say the least. 

Son began to cross the room to try and reach the machine just as it began to fire up; the engine, or whatever was powering it, made a horrible sound like it was grinding against itself to start, sending sparks out wildly. After a moment, the machine shot out a line, or rather a cartridge, of colored christmas lights from its central chamber. 

Son, with his anime-like reflexes, managed to dodge all of the lights that came at him. The others were not so lucky.

Phoenix tried to dodge the lights coming towards him, but got grazed by a bright red one on his left arm, which burst upon contact and sent him to the ground. He was glad it at least hit his bio implant arm, otherwise it would’ve caused a lot more damage. Still hurt though. 

Both the mechanic and the prostitute decided it would be best to block the lights. Chasy scrambled to find something to shield herself with, and managed to pick up a large metal sheet. It looked like it was a piece of the ceiling that fell off at some point. She knelt down on the ground and held the sheet up to block the christmas lights as they exploded against it in bursts of bright, deadly colors. 

Al picked up a piece of plastic on the ground and decided that was good enough, ready to accept death. However, Chasy refused to let the man die under her watch, and shuffled over to Al, yanking him behind the metal sheet by the arm. Her fingers got cut up by shrapnel in her attempts to protect him, but Chasy was largely unphased. 

Jamie felt more than a little useless at the moment, what with her inability to physically exert herself and her limp bio implant arm. She watched as a giant christmas light, one bigger than her head, flew directly towards her as if in slow motion; she knew it was coming, but she also knew there was no way she could fully dodge it in time. Thankfully, Son noticed this and flung his hobo-slaying paddle towards the bulb mid run, colliding with it 5 feet in front of Jamie in a large, blue tinted explosion. Although Jamie was thrown back a bit and scratched up by the shrapnel, she was mostly unharmed, although rendered more helpless than she was before. 

Andy prepared himself as if to dodge, but just as a barrage of lights came towards him, he phased out of existence for several seconds before reappearing several feet forward of where he was, the lights having exploded on the wall behind him, himself unaware that anything occurred. 

Son continued his charge forward and soon reached the machine, jumping on one of the smaller chambers, flipping onto another, and then finally getting onto the main chamber before making a mad dash to the crudely made swivel chair in an act of sick parkour. Everyone would have been impressed if they weren’t desperately avoiding death. 

Very slowly, Son turned the swivel chair around to find a bagel with cartoon stick figure legs which were crossed sassily. It spoke with a booming, powerful voice. “I've been waiting.” 

The bagel took in a large breath, as if it was about to begin an evil rant and go off about how he built the machine to destroy them after they failed to pick him up off the ground from his cold icy prison and so on, but Son decked it in the face just as it began to speak. Its stick figure legs popped off and it lost sentience. Unfortunately, Son punched the bagel so hard, that the chair also fell over. The now inanimate bagel rolled off the chair harmlessly, but the chair toppled backwards, and by some cruel twist of fate, it managed to hit the machine at just the wrong angle, causing the machine to go apeshit. Parts of the machine began exploding, christmas lights were flying out, and the main chamber started firing out lights like a machine gun. The whole thing looked like it was about to explode. 

Son realized two very important things at once; that he needed to book it off of this machine if he didn’t want to die, and that he needed to grab the bagel, which had toppled down the machine to his right, if they wanted to get any of their shit back. He also realized he had about 8 seconds to do both of these things. 

He dashed to his right and jumped onto the lower tier of the machine, grabbing the bagel with one hand before leaping off. Just as Son launched off, the machine exploded under him and launched him towards the exit, sending him flying over the dead bodies and the rest of the party, before slamming him face first into the wall on the opposite side of the room with a cartoon splat sound effect. After a moment or two he peeled off the wall and fell onto the ground. He couldn’t really feel most of his body and had probably pulverized his nose, but at least he had the bagel. 

Andy decided that now was about the right time to get the hell out of this nightmare of a building. He noticed that Jamie was more or less a sitting duck since she wasn’t able to run to the exit or launch herself there with her arm, so he decided to grab her. He ran over to where she was, dodging lights along the way, and picked her up bridal style before making a break for the exit. 

“Thank you for that.” 

“No problem, you looked a little fucked.” 

“Indeed.” Jamie wouldn’t have worded it in such a vulgar manner, but she was grateful nonetheless.

As Andy zigzagged his way to the exit, trying to avoid the onslaught of lights, he failed to notice a small, green light gunning towards him. The light hit him in the knee, on the same leg as his twisted ankle, and exploded, sending both Andy and Jamie tumbling to the ground, the former cussing out a storm. 

Phoenix started running towards the exit as soon as the machine exploded and managed to make it to the door only lightly battered by a few tiny Christmas lights, leaving him pretty much unharmed. 

Chasy wasn’t about to stay around for this bullshit. She wanted her fucking booze, and the only way she could get it was if she made it to the door alive by sheer willpower. Chasy turned her head to the exit, preparing to run, and was immediately hit hard in the back of the head with a giant christmas light, knocking her out completely. 

Son watched this play of events go down from where he laid on the floor, almost wanting to laugh but knowing he had a responsibility to help her. He decided to push through his injuries to save her, anime leaping up from the ground, over Jamie and Andy’s heads, directly to Chasy in one go. It happened in cinematics; a sudden burst of thematic music swelled dramatically, all of it was in slow motion, sparkles eminated off of his body, his hair turned into a flowing bright yellow mane, and the peak of his jump got lens flare even though they were indoors in the middle of the night. He landed in a perfect 10 that would make any cranky judge shed a tear, twirled around, picked up Chasy, and got both of them to the exit unharmed. Jamie and Andy momentarily ignored the mortal danger they were in to clap. 

It was then that Al briefly snapped out of his depressive state and realized he was in a bit of a sticky situation. He was being bombarded by hundreds of christmas lights with no protection, nowhere to go, and two of the most competent people in the room, or at least the two that would have had the best shot at saving him had left. Worse, his remaining two friends were probably going to die if he didn’t do something to help them. Besides, he couldn’t get Boxy back if he died here, and so his determination to retrieve and rescue both his robot and non robot friends managed to overpower his depression in that short moment. 

He saw Andy and Jamie still on the ground about 10 feet from him, struggling to get up under the heavy fire and somehow managed to waddle over to the two, narrowly avoiding Christmas lights. He reached Jamie, grabbed her hands, and lifted her into the air. Andy was basically attached, he realized what Al was trying to do and clung to Jamie for dear life since his footing was piss-poor at the moment, and both were brought to their feet. 

They were all at least in some kind of position to move again, but they were still getting shot at. 

~  
Out of nowhere, the ambient, royalty free Christmas music stopped, and was instead replaced with the Attack on Titan opening, you had no idea why it only changed at that moment, but you chose not to openly comment on it since you didn’t want Elsigar to know you were a weeaboo.  
~

Jamie decided that the trio’s chances of getting to the exit were rather slim at this point, Al seemed to have reverted back to his depressed state, Andy could barely walk, and she certainly stood no chance trying ro run to the exit. Jamie turned her body to the machine. She was absolutely fed up with all of these christmas lights. Who thought it was a good idea to put christmas lights in a machine gun? A sentient bagel, apparently. This whole evening had been quite sour for her, and she had just about lost her patience. She was going to shoot her way out of this holly jolly nonsense. She pulled out the pistol she kept in her right sleeve and was overcome by a deep, instinctual urge to shoot at the machine randomly, at a single inconspicuous spot.

The bullet hit the machine, and for a single second, the rain of bullets ceased entirely in a moment of serene silence.

Light burst from the machine, and the explosion that followed rattled the entire building, and sent Jamie, Andy, and Al flying out of the building through the now broken wall to the snowy plaza outside, all largely unharmed. 

The building toppled down moments after the trio flew out, and the rest of the party watched in silence as it fell apart in front of them. 

“I'm glad that worked out alright.” To be honest, Jamie wasn't entirely sure what would happen if she successfully blew up the machine, or if the resulting shockwave would even be enough to launch them to the exit, but fortunately everything worked out in a rather flashy way.

Al laid down on his back in the snow, unmoving. “Glad we’re all safe...” 

“We’re all alive.” Andy wouldn’t exactly say that they were safe since they still had at least a whole second building to go through, but they hadn’t died yet at least. 

Son spun around to the building with the cybertech door angrily. “Well now we have to go back into this fuckin building and put the bagel into the hole!” After that nightmare who the fuck could say what kind of holiday hellscape would be behind that door? It’s not like they really had a choice at this point, since they needed to get their items back, but he wasn’t too optimistic after everything else they had seen. 

Son picked up an unconscious Chasy, and threw her over his shoulder before leading the charge, or rather, the unenthusiastic walk, back to the bagel door. 

Son, who still had the bagel on him, put it into the bagel-shaped slot on the door. The bagel was absorbed by the door, a small grate coming out over it. The futuristic door then started ticking for several seconds, before making a little ‘ding’ sound like a toaster, and with a small click the door popped open. 

Son was about to lose his fucking mind.

A well toasted bagel sat on the floor on the other side of the door. 

“Can I have the bagel?” Al wasn’t as concerned with the fact that it was just trying to kill him as he was with his extreme desire to feel any form of joy again. 

Son sighed before picking it up off of the ground and handing it to Al “Eat the fucking bagel.” 

Upon receiving the bagel, Al almost smiled. He put the entire thing into his mouth, chewed it, swallowed it, and then immediately after his eyes went wide for a moment, then rolled back, and he passed out. The entire thing happened so fast no one even caught him, they just watched as he went down and only registered what happened after he hit the floor. 

Al was having a terrible day. 

Son knelt down to check that Al still had a pulse (he did). “Was it a poisoned bagel?” It didn’t look like he choked on it. 

The remaining trio collectively shrugged. 

“Maybe we should have someone else eat the bagel to see if it’s poisoned or not” There was probably a little bit leftover...

“Let’s not do that.” Andy wasn’t about to take his chances eating something that managed to take down a grown man at full health, and he imagined the others felt the same way. 

“Yeah, I'm not eating that.” Even if the bagel wasn’t poisoned or otherwise capable of rendering a person unconscious, Jamie found the idea of eating half eaten bagel chunks from someone’s mouth mildly disgusting. 

Alongside having two members of their group down for the count, most remaining members had been injured in the previous room, so their prospects in any kind of fight were somewhat discouraging. Son and Phoenix only sported minor, more surface level wounds from the light machine, Jamie had more significant injuries from the machine but was still ok enough to fight, and Andy had injuries both from the light machine and his barfight earlier, so one more good hit would probably be enough to take him out. They could have all been better, but all things considered they could have been a lot worse off. 

Figuring there was no use in waiting any longer, the remaining four entered the next room, Phoenix and Andy each grabbing one of Al’s arms to half carry-half drag him in and Son carrying Chasy.

As soon as they entered the room, they noticed it looked like an empty office building, but all the desks, cubicles and chairs had been broken and pushed to the far side of the room in the form of several large piles. Despite looking like a two story building from the outside, the room they were in extended up at least 15 stories. In the very back of the building sat a giant christmas tree, even larger than the one in the plaza, and surrounding it was a pile of assorted presents. The sheer volume of different gifts, gizmos, gadgets, and all other kinds of items almost overtook the enormous tree in its sheer size and height. At the very tip top of the giant stack of gifts, sat everyone’s items, neatly placed close to the top of the tree. 

After taking the scene in for a moment, Son was the first to speak “Anyone other than me know how to climb?” He doubted it, but it was worth asking. 

Jamie and Phoenix shook their heads, given their bio implant arms were either unmovable or damaged respectively.

“I can fucking try.” Andy’s leg wasn’t doing so hot, but he still had two functional arms, which was more than the other two could say.

“That’s ok, if you take one more hit I don’t think you’ll be doing much of anything.” 

“Fair point.” 

“Well, I guess I'll take the bullet on this.” Son put Chasy down on the ground and approached the tree to start climbing. He had a very strong feeling that this wasn’t going to work given how the rest of the night had been, but he at least wanted to try.

Son started climbing up the pile, and honestly thought things were going pretty well, until he heard a voice call out to him angrily from across the room. “Hey! What are you doing?” The outburst startled Son enough to make him lose his grip and slide back down to the floor.

Son and the rest of the conscious members of the team turned towards the voice and were met with a rather strange looking man who appeared to be half-goat half-human, wearing an ugly Christmas sweater. He was very scraggly and scrawny looking, with dark gray fur. He wore what could best be called dad glasses that rested on top of his snout. He held a rolled up newspaper under one arm and a cup of coffee in the other, in a ceramic mug made to look like santa’s face. 

“What are you doing on my pile?!”

Jamie put on a cutesy, unassuming voice. “We’re looking for our things that someone stole!” Jamie figured this man was likely the one who stole their things, but thought endearing herself verbally was a better first option over conflict, though much of her would have preferred to attack the man rather than be diplomatic. 

Son turned to Jamie from where he sat on the ground. “I think he stole all of these presents and gifts.” 

Mentally, Jamie facepalmed.

“Stole? These are rightfully mine, these are all my things!” 

“Uh, no that sword is mine.” 

“But sir, that’s my tiara, it controls this arm of mine.” 

“Hmmm…well finders keepers!” 

“No man, that ain’t how this works!” Part of Jamie wanted to be civil for a little while longer but the other part of her was out of patience for the night.

“That eye literally got ripped out of my face!” 

“Hmm...well, the wind gave it to me so it's mine now!” 

Son stood up from the ground “Jamie, do you wanna kill him or shall I?”

“Well, I still have my guns, so I’m gonna shoot him because I need my tiara back. Can you grab our stuff?” 

Son nodded in response, and the other two men brought out their respective weapons.

“So you want to fight?” The goat man almost sounded entertained. 

“Yes, I do! I’m very angry, I’m covered in christmas light shrapnel, and I can’t move my good arm.”

“Well, I didn’t want this night to end up like this…” The Krampus took off his glasses and folded them neatly on the ground next to him. He tossed his newspaper behind him, and then, in a very dad-like way said “Well, time to kick some ass!” 

In a flash, the krampus’ body started growing, shaking, ripping right out of his christmas sweater in a mass of bulbous flesh, all the while the krampus yelled in what sounded like a mix of a scream and a war cry. The whole thing was rather horrifying to watch, as the krampus’ skin continually ripped itself apart and reformed, bones breaking through before being covered by ever growing masses of flesh. Once the terrifying process was over, a giant, hulking, top heavy beast stood where the mild looking goat man once was, staring down at the four youths, somehow still wearing a tiny christmas hat on top of its head. 

He was like a goat combined with a werewolf combined with a bear combined with whatever the fuck else you can imagine into one mangly, gross, muscly beast. It was so large that its horns were scraping the ceiling, and so top heavy and deformed that its hands brushed the ground. It stood hunched over and stared the group down, breathing heavily. 

“I really don’t like that.” Andy had hoped things wouldn’t get weirder then the sentient bagel, but here he fucking was having just watched that nightmare-inducing transformation. 

“Neither do I, but you know what? ” Said the heiress, lifting her gun in the direction of the Krampus monster. “I’m going to shoot it in the eye” 

“Not a bad idea.” 

Jamie immediately stepped back and took a shot, hitting the beast directly in his right eye. The krampus recoiled back, clutching his face as he let out a scream so loud it shook the entire building, presents and office supplies falling everywhere as he stumbled back and slammed into the far wall of the room (our party’s items however stayed where they were). He paused for a moment, regaining his balance and breathing deeply before speaking. 

“You bitch!” The krampus growled, moving his hands to stare the woman down with his remaining eye. In a fit of rage, he hit the wall he was up against with the side of his fist, bursting a hole in it, before rushing towards Jamie. 

Jamie managed to dodge the beast’s attack by the skin of her teeth, the Krampus barreling himself into the ground, but the resounding shockwave sent her flying back into the pile of office supplies with such force that she nearly hit the wall.

Phoenix decided the path of a giant monster wasn’t the best place to be at the moment, so he instead decided to use his stealth abilities to sneak behind it. He managed to successfully get behind the krampus, but the same shockwave that hit Jamie knocked him back a bit, leaving him unharmed.

Son had begun to climb back up the pile of presents before the krampus started to charge, figuring he could count on Jamie to keep it distracted long enough to get their shit. He was making good progress all things considered, but he was still nowhere near the top. 

After a moment of being semi-buried in the ground, the krampus lifted itself back onto its feet, looming over Jamie and Andy. 

It seemed about time to commit some arson. Phoenix, from his position behind the krampus, lit up his arm and moved to light the monster’s tail on fire. By some convenient luck, the flame not only took, but almost immediately ignited the entire tail, burning the krampus’ ass in the process. The shock of it forced the Krampus to keel over onto its arms, doggy style if you will, and left it stunned.

Andy wasn’t about to let such an opportunity go to waste. He decided to go for its other eye, since blinding it would make it more difficult for the thing to track them. It was easier said than done since the Krampus’ head alone was at least 6 times his height, but Andy managed to push through his injuries to rush forward and reach its remaining eye. However, the moment he thrust forward his sword to stab the eye, he knew something was wrong. Its eye suddenly opened, and although he managed to directly stab it, the Krampus threw his head back before Andy could even react, sending him and his sword flying off and to the other side of the room, surprisingly unharmed. 

Although the Krampus had been stabbed, it seemed to have little effect on him this time, as he immediately began to stand back up. 

“You can’t touch me bitch!” The Krampus yelled, his voice once more shaking the building, “I’m the motherfucking Krampus!” The Krampus began to attack wildly, swatting the air and stomping his feet around in lieu of being able to see his targets.

Son Hattori continued to climb the pile of presents, or at least, he attempted to. He was roughly halfway up, but the pile beginning to become quite unsteady due to the Krampus tromping around, and Son was struggling to keep his footing. He tried to grab onto a present to his right for support, only for it to fall to the ground, making him slide back down to the bottom of the pile with it. 

“Fuck.”

As the Krampus went around blindly attacking, he began to get dangerously close to Andy. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to run from the attack in his current condition, Andy instead tried to brace for the hit as much as he could. By some extreme stroke of luck, however, Andy wasn’t crushed to a pulp. Instead, the Krampus slapped him with just the right amount of force at just the right angle to send him right up to the top of the christmas tree without causing him any harm, somehow. He hung off of the star on top, upside down, by the thread of his shirt. 

Distracted from watching what had just transpired, Phoenix was thrown back by one of the Krampus’ hands to a distance where he was too far away to attack. He managed to not sustain further damage but he was farther away from the monster then he wanted to be for maximum ignition.

Jamie was still buried in a pile of office supplies, and overall worse for wear, but she still felt the need to try and do something. She popped her gun arm up and out of the pile, and tried to shoot in the general direction of the Krampus’ legs so it would stop stomping on her friends.

It turned out she instead managed to shoot the monster directly in its large, Krampus-y dick, which exploded upon impact. 

Up until that point, the entire group had been collectively trying to ignore the monsters genitals, seeing as it lost all of its clothes upon hulking out and seeing as...everything had gotten bigger with the transformation. No conscious member of the group really wanted to be the one to bring up the Krampus’ giant, throbbing cock and balls so no one had, it was just something that was there that made them all a little uncomfortable. 

The Krampus let out an unholy scream as his dick was sent to the shadow realm. Somehow, he was now even more pissed then he was before, which was saying something given he’d already lost both of his eyes. It was like a switch went off, he looked up to the sky and went limp for a moment as his whole body began to glow bright red, his skin rippled as spikes began to burst from every part of his body. He slammed back onto the ground, sending another round of shockwaves rippling forward as he let out a thunderous roar. It seemed as if the spikes had locked him into the ground, rendering him unable to move from his current spot, but with more attack power. Such was the power of castration, apparently.

The group also learned that the Krampus had gained more attack range through his newfound ability to shoot out small spikes from his body. Specifically, they learned this because the Krampus immediately shot a bunch of them in Jamie’s general direction. None of them managed to hit since Jamie was still mostly buried in assorted office supplies, but they did manage to scatter the pile, sending desks, chairs and whatever else lied within the pile everywhere. 

After spinning himself upright and getting an actual hold on the tree rather than loosely dangling off of it, Andy went to retrieve everyone’s items before the Krampus had a chance to find him. He jumped from where he was at the top of the tree to the top of the presents pile, landing directly on top. 

“Hey Son!” He shouted, catching the blue giant’s attention. “Catch!” He kicked Son’s enormous sword down from the top of the pile and towards his direction. Son reached out an arm and caught the sword flawlessly, ready to kick some ass now that he was properly armed. 

Apparently done with Jamie, the Krampus noticed the unconscious bodies of Al and Chasy, who had been haphazardly propped up near the entrance, zeroing in on them. His spikes began to ripple outwards and turn in their direction, as if he was rearing up to shoot at them. 

Meanwhile, as the Krampus geared up to fucking murder the two unconscious party members, Son was gearing up in his own right, bolting towards the Krampus. He was so done with today. With the Krampus. With all of this bullshit. He had to turn an extremely horny hobo into ash today, and he didn’t know if any amount of therapy or drugs would be able to fully erase that kind of trauma from his mind. And now two of his friends were unable to defend themselves and about to be annihilated by a giant disgusting furry monster. Son was kinda fucking pissed. One might say he was on the edge of going apeshit. However, the big difference now, comparative to the rest of this awful adventure, was that now he had an enormous sword to go apeshit with. 

Son’s anger mixed with his desire to save his friends, and it effectively felt like getting adrenaline pumped directly into his veins. Son was so hyped he could feel his heartbeat in his eyes. He was gonna end this shit once and for all. Son leapt into the air and swung his sword in an arc nearly as long as the room, with a resounding cry of “Happy fucking holidays you krampy bitch!” 

A shockwave emanated from the slice, and a moment later a glowing golden line appeared straight in the middle of the Krampus’ body, the spikes quickly detaching. There was a moment’s pause before the slice went into effect, the Krampus’ body began literally fall apart having been cleaved in two, in what seemed like slow motion. As the two equal halves of the goat-man began to separate, a large spurt of blood shot out, and a moment later, his entire body exploded, sending blood, guts and rubble everywhere. 

This explosion set off a chain reaction in the rest of the room. The office supplies went flying, the tower of presents toppled to the ground, the christmas tree stood singed and barren, and a giant crater rested in the floor where the Krampus once stood. The Krampus’ spikes stood floating in midair for a moment before harmlessly falling to the ground. 

From the center of the crater, the group heard what could only be described as a small cry. Upon inspection, they found that in the very center of the crater, there was a tiny, baby goatman laying on the ground, almost completely engulfed by a slightly burnt santa hat. 

“Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting, but I did it!” With that, Son fell to the ground out of exhaustion, laying slumped against the fallen pile of christmas presents and just breathing in and out. 

Jamie stood at the edge of the crater, overlooking the christmas themed carnage around her. “So uh...what just happened…?” She looked to those around her for an answer despite knowing they had no more of a clue then she did.

Andy managed to make his way out of the pile of presents he had been buried in post-explosion and found his way to the edge of the crater as well, holding his face in his hands for a moment before speaking. “I’m gonna go ahead and declare that this was all just a crazed, shared, fever dream and we should all forget that any of this ever happened.” 

“Agreed.” 

Suddenly, an assortment of small, christmas colored lights began to engulf the room in some sort of beautiful looking light show. All of the presents, the tree, and the office supplies glowed pleasant reds and blues and greens as they began to fade away, as if they were all being returned to their original owners. 

Jamie’s tiara materialized onto her head, Son’s sword glowed a bright green but otherwise stayed where it was next to him, Andy’s eye returned to his face, Chasy regained her titties and became Chastity once more, Phoenix’ lighter appeared in the palm of his hand, and the powers keeping Chastity from consuming alcohol and Phoenix from committing serious arson seemed to disappear, all in a misty glow of light and a warm breeze. 

Al and Chastity slowly awoke, as if the light show above them managed to stir them, just as a white light, complete with an angelic choir, materialized about 20 feet above Al. From this sacred light came Boxy, who slowly descended from the heavens, like jesus, gently landing on Al’s chest. 

“I missed you!” Said Boxy, in his tiny little robot babyman voice.

“I missed you too, buddy!” Al was openly crying, but this time he was crying tears of joy. Everyone was very happy for him.

Throughout this spectacle, the baby goatman in the center of the crater continued to cry. 

“Jamie, shoot him!” Son called out from where he sat against the presents. 

“I...I want to take a look at this thing before I do that…” Her first instinct was to shoot it before it could harm them further, but if it really was an innocent baby, she couldn’t justify killing it, even if it had made their night hell…

Jamie slid down to the center of the crater and went to further investigate. The baby goatman had peaked its head out of the santa hat by the time she reached it, and stopped crying as she approached. Jamie looked the baby goat directly in its eyes and it looked back at her in complete and utter innocence. It was literally just a baby goat man. Jamie really didn’t want to kill this innocent baby, it may have tried to kill them five minutes ago but she couldn’t justifiably hold that against it. 

Jamie let out a sigh. “I’m sure I’ve got a family member that has enough land for a baby goatman to live on.” She certainly didn't want to take care of it, but she could at least assure it would live comfortably, and it made an interesting Christmas gift at the least. Jamie picked up the now calmed baby goatman and climbed out of the crater.

“It’s a weird little thing, isn’t it?” Son didn’t get a good look at the baby goatman before Jamie brought it up, but something about its appearance felt off.

“Hey man, I’ve seen weirder.”

“I guess that’s true, you were friends with Forkie…”

“Hey Son, you’re blue.” 

Son paused a moment at that, as if he himself had forgotten. “I am blue…”

“Da ba dee da ba die…” Al and Andy chorused in synch, reciting the tune of a long forgotten song like broken men. 

“What do you all say we go back to my apartment for some tea and christmas cookies?” And also medical treatment, as she wasn’t confident that half of their group would be capable of walking further than her apartment, but that could always wait until tomorrow. 

“That seems like a good idea.” Al said, having regained his will to live and purpose in life.

“Could someone carry me?” Son was pretty sure that last hit on Krampus used up all of the adrenaline in his body. “I kinda can’t move after that.” 

Andy raised his hand from where he had slumped down on the edge of the crater. “Me as well. I don’t even know how I’m still alive.” He hadn’t quite expected to survive falling 15 stories from the top of the present pile, nevertheless magically unharmed.

Phoenix and Al made their way over to help, and they all made their way out of the destroyed room.

As they walked past the krampus’ destroyed abode,  
Having finished their holiday brawl,  
The six retrieved their treasures,  
And a happy reunion was had by all

Their yuletide quest now over,  
Our heroes returned home,   
Seeing as it was so late,  
They decided to sleepover at Jamie’s dome

They talked for hours,  
As the night grew deep,  
Then curled up by the fire,  
Each one fell asleep

Each one except Chastity,  
Who awoke and spied  
A speck in the distance,  
As from a cannon it flied

It was in fact Dr. Bearface,  
And he said in his flight,  
“Merry Christmas to all,   
And to all a mediocre night!”

~  
“...and the end! Well, how did you like the story Timmy?” Elsigar closed the book and crossed his legs, expectantly.

“That was fucking awful.” You say, looking up at the ethereal figure disdainfully. The entire plot made no sense, you didn't know who anyone was, and it wasn't even entertaining. 

Elsigar signed, visibly disappointed. “I knew I should have read you the real novelization first…oh well, I really had hoped that would be enough to make you fall asleep, but...I guess I have no choice” The last bit was inflicted with far more malice then the ethereal beings former chipper tone, almost as if it was a threat.

“W-What are you gonna do to me?” You stutter, suddenly realizing the implications of being stuck in a room with an inhuman creature with no way to escape. If you screamed for help would anyone come in time? Would anyone even hear you? Or was it just you and Elsigar in this building? What was he even capable of? You squirmed against your restraints, beginning to sweat as panic took hold of you. 

Elsigar noticed this change as he stood up from the rocking chair. “Calm down now Timmy...I'm just going to do what I came here to do.” Elsigar held out his hand, a clear light shining from the center of his palm as a baseball bat materialized in the air. He grabbed the bat with both hands and turned towards you as you tried to free yourself from the metal bars holding you down, but it was futile; he was winding up his shot and there was no way you could escape in time “I’m going to put you to sleep!” 

And with that, your world went black, the last image in your mind being Elsigar’s featureless, emotionless, face as he bludgeoned you with a baseball bat. 

~

Part of you honestly didn't expect to wake up after that, but you did; In the dumpster of a family owned mexican restaurant in Miami Florida, with a mild concussion due to blunt force trauma to the head, after getting a garbage bag full of stale tortilla chips thrown square on your chest. After getting the cops called on you, you learned that three months had passed since you were spirited from your bed by an otherworldly being, you were filed in their systems as a missing person. Your family and friends had been searching for you for months. The next day, after your girlfriend got on the first flight from LAX to Miami to see you, as she stood sobbing in your arms, you wondered if that night was even real. 

You had to undergo some counseling once you got home, your lack of memory from that entire three month span convinced counselors and shrinks that you had suffered from an extreme case of dissociative fugue; a state where you forget everything about yourself and wander, but you knew better. You never mentioned Elsigar or the details of that night to anyone, not even your girlfriend, convinced that you’d be viewed as a raving lunatic, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't forget it. You tried to write it off as some kind of drug trip in the middle of your dissociative state, but you had never done any drug that had a high like that, that felt so real. 

You were never able to erase that night from your mind, nor explain it, every detail stuck with you for years and years. You couldn't suppress the shudder that went down your spine whenever someone with the same name as one of the characters in the story introduced themselves to you, christmas never felt the same to you again, and even now, you lie awake in bed at night beside your wife, afraid that you’ll fall asleep and wake up strapped down in that holiday themed room, wondering if you’ll ever be able to find peace.

Happy holidays!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> And that's that. I wrote up the poem part myself for the original session, but everything else was transcribed from a recording of the session we had, with some extra added in. I wasn't able to finish it in time for Christmas last year, so I figured I might as well get it out early this holiday season. Screw Thanksgiving, we're in the pre-game for Christmas as far as I'm concerned. Happy Holidays!


End file.
